HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Meeting - Council Workshop - Minutes - 01/15/2002 JOINT COUNCIL WORKSHOP/
LAND USE and PLANNING BOARD MEETING
JANUARY 15, 2002
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: President Tim Clark, Connie Epperly, Leona Orr, Julie
Peterson, Bruce White, Judy Woods, Rico Yingling
LAND USE AND PLANNING BOARD: Les Thomas, Ron Harmon, Steve Dowell,Nicole
Fincher, Terry Zimmerman, David Malik
STAFF PRESENT: Mike Martin, Tom Brubaker, Fred Satterstrom, Kim Adams-Pratt, Kim
Marousek, John Hodgson, Charlene Anderson, Jackie Bicknell
PUBLIC PRESENT: Richard Rawlings, Albert Drelsow, Jere Thornton, Glenn Gray, Anna
LoPriore-Kline, Elaine Spencer, Brent Carson,Jack McCann, Debi Nicholson, Jeff Barker
Council President Tim Clark called the meeting to order at 5:05 PM. He stated that no public
comments would be accepted and the Council would not be giving any directions to the Land
Use &Planning Board. He asked that neither agency make any decisions within the context of
the meeting.
Working Relationship Between the Land Use& Planning Board and the Citv Council
Community Development Director Fred Satterstrom said that a legislative authority hears
• matters relating to land use in the City of Kent, including the Comprehensive Plan, the Shoreline
ordinance, subdivision and zoning codes, etc., as established under state law. The legislative
authority consists, as established by Kent ordinance, of the two bodies of the Land Use and
Planning Board and the City Council. The Land Use and Planning Board members are appointed
by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council for three year terms and has been in existence
for over six years. Some of the current members were original members of the Board. The
Board holds public meetings as required by law and makes recommendations to the City Council
who, by state law and City ordinance, makes the final decision on matters. (The authority to
make those decisions cannot be delegated to anyone else.)
Mr. Satterstrom said that a Comprehensive Plan amendment can only be made once a year and
the deadline is September lst. Recommendations are usually made around Christmas time and
by late January or early February they are on the desk of the City Council. By law, the Land Use
&Planning Board holds the public hearing. There is no other hearing required by law before an
item goes to the City Council, and the Council can do with an item as it pleases. Some issues are
non controversial and it's very easy for the Council to simply take the recommendation of the
Board after having a public meeting. (A hearing is not required,but a meeting is.) Some issues
generate considerable controversy and require a hearing at the Board(such as a zoning code
amendment). When that issue goes up before the Council, it does not require a new public
hearing. If issues are controversial, the public may feel a great need to give further input,but if
issues are not controversial, generally the Council moves forward with them directly.
Annexation and zoning are different. Annexation and zoning,by state law, requires a hearing by
• the Land Use and Planning Board and then two more hearings in front of the City Council where
the public is invited to speak. The hearings have to be 30 days apart.
Council Workshop, 1/15/02 2
• Councilmember Rico Yingling said he feels, as a City Council member, that he represents the
community. He asked who the Planning Board represented. Land Use &Planning Board
Member Terry Zimmerman responded that the Board represents the interests of those people
who live in Kent. When an issue comes, the Board tries to look at it as any citizen would
(without the burden of getting reelected) and to take a bird's eye view of an issue and try to give
honest feedback about how it would affect citizens in the city. We try to ask questions that
perhaps have not been previously asked or addressed by staff and to get lots of information from
staff.
Tim Clark said the Land Use&Planning Board body was a statutory creation, and the
appointments were supposed to be made geographically to give diversity in the representation of
the interests of the various neighborhoods. Specific charges were also given to the Board.
Assistant City Attorney Kim Adams-Pratt said the ordinance states the Board is part of the
Planning Office and describes the items they are to look at to make recommendations for
Council, such as the zoning code, subdivisions, comp plan amendments, etc. The ordinance
doesn't address directly who they represent, but the emphasis is that they be citizens and located
in different geographic areas, so they should be representing the people who live in those
communities. Land Use &Planning Board Member Steve Dowell said they also take the
industrial aspect of the zoning code into consideration, and business and industry in the City of
Kent is also considered. Land Use &Planning Board Member David Malik concurred that the
Board was the voice of the business owners and said people could come from anywhere in King
County, as there was no closed door policy for anyone. The Board listens carefully and looks at
. whether a person is right or wrong and then makes a decision.
Tim Clark clarified that the vested power was in the Council. They are the ones authorized by
the people as the final repository of the decisions of how the community will live. Realistically,
the City asks the Land Use and Planning Board to go through a hearing process to offer guidance
in terms of how to deal with complex issues or changes. Zoning is a change that impacts
neighborhoods and Council has to consider each individual case. Without the Board, the Council
would be swamped. Councilmember Judy Woods commented that it would be possible for the
Council to do the work the Board does and to not have a board, but said she was personally
thrilled that the Board does the initial heavy lifting that streamlines the proces.
Councilmember Leona Orr agreed that the Council and the Board do represent the same people,
which is the community, whether it's business owners or citizens,but do have different
functions. The Board is at the beginning of something corning before the Council, and the
Council is very appreciative of the time the Board gives because it's an enormous job.
Ultimately, where the difference comes is that the Council does make the final decision and
sometimes that's the same decision the Board recommended and sometimes it's not, and there
could be a minor change or a major change.
Steve Dowell said the process of public hearings needed to be defined. A public hearing may
last three or four hours, and after the Board gets all the information, the meeting is closed and the
Board discusses among itself the good and bad points. A vote is then taken and a
. recommendation is sent to Council. Sometimes the Council will have another public hearing and
Council Workshop, 1/15/02 3
the Board wonders a little bit about that. The Board doesn't mind it when the Council says it's a
lousy recommendation, but does have a problem with a second public hearing wherein
everything changes and the people that come before Council are different people than came
before the Board.
Leona Orr commented that sometimes the Council has no choice. During annexation,two public
hearings have to be held after the Board has already held a public hearing. Steve Dowell
countered that some of them aren't about annexations. Council should vote an issue up or down
without a public hearing at the Council level on the items that are legal to do it that way and it
would save hours of time. Constituents could call the Council if they wanted and still have
input, but the second public hearing wouldn't have to be held, which sometimes is completely
different than the one that the Board approved.
Councilmember Connie Epperly said that one of the reasons the Council's public hearings are
completely different is because people miss the Land Use and Planning Board's process, but then
as it starts working its way up, they hear about it. Sometimes the Council is deluged with
completely different people than were at the Board's hearing, which generally was with the
vested property owners. Then the whole neighborhood hears about the issue and by the time the
public hearing gets to the Council, there's a whole new spin on it.
Terry Zimmerman said the thing that bothers the Board is that it feels sometimes that the hours
spent taking public testimony doesn't get folded into the Council's mix, and all the work the
Board has done didn't get equal time with the citizens who came the evening the Council heard
• the issue. The Board would like to have the brain power that's gone into its decisions accurately
and powerfully part of the decisions that Council makes,but feels that they don't quite get to the
forefront because the Council's public hearings turn out so differently.
Councilmember Julie Peterson asked if the Land Use Board could come to the City Council
meetings and make Land Use presentations to the Council should the process stay the same as it
is now where there are public hearings at the City Council level. Tim Clark agreed the
expectation was that the Council would get a walk-through from what the Land Use and
Planning Board did.
Land Use &Planning Board Member Ron Harmon said the people that come to the Board's first
hearing may not be the ones who come to the second hearing. If the Board has one hearing and
passes on the recommendation, and then the next group comes to the Council's hearing,they
have the last say and more power and influence because they are the last to speak. The first
group doesn't stand a chance. The reason why Council has public hearings is because there are
brand new people.
Connie Epperly said that if the Council did its homework and read the Boards' minutes (which
are in the Council packet), they would have read all of the Board's comments. Rico Yingling
asked how often it happened that Council voted against a Planning Board recommendation after
hearing public comment. Terry Zimmerman said there had been three significant times in the
last year.
•
Council Workshop, 1/15/02 4
David Malik said citizens want to know the process so they can plan, and they should know how
many public hearing there will be and how many workshops. Right now, people don't know if
the issue will be going to the Planning Committee, a public hearing, or a workshop. Sometimes
nothing happens for three months and nobody knows where it's going.
Leona Orr suggested taking the whole issue to the Planning Committee and working on it.
Tim Clark responded that the City Council, because they have to make the decision, sometimes
receives information that the Board did not have at its hearings, and as a consequence, there
won't going to be a definite sure process for every single sort.
Rico Yingling said the people who go to the Land Use and Planning Board need to know what's
going to happen next, and the Council isn't going to stop giving people the ability to talk if
there's a need for them to talk. All the interested parties need to go to the Council meetings to
see something fully through because there's a chance it will be opened up for public comment.
It's fair as long as everyone has that warning
Leona Orr announced that the first Planning Committee meeting would be February 19"' at 3:00
PM.
Agricultural Lands Study
Community Development Director Fred Satterstrom said the Land Use and Planning Board had
been wrestling with what to do with agricultural lands since the Council gave that issue to them
about a year ago. The issue stemmed from a Comprehensive Plan amendment in the agricultural
• areas which, owing to the specific characteristics of that plan amendment,was ultimately
approved by the Council,but yet bore fruit in terms of taking a look at what to do with
agricultural lands. Mr. Satterstrom said he was actually hired by the City of Kent in 1982 on a
44 day contract to do an Agricultural Lands Study. At that time, a lot of lands were zoned R-A,
which was a residential agriculture district that was viewed to transition to residential at some
future time. In the mid 1980's there was a great focus on agricultural lands because King County
was purchasing development rights. Bond issues had been passed for$50 million and people
that owned agricultural lands could offer their property for purchase by the county. They would
retain title to the land and the right to farm it and retain the agricultural value of the land but the
development rights would be owned by the county. A substantial part of the agricultural lands in
the Kent area, (not within the city limits)was sold to the county in a PDR program.
Mr. Satterstrom detailed an area on a map and said that virtually everything green was in the
county's Agricultural Production District and therefore eligible to have development rights
purchased. Hundreds, if not thousands of acres, entered the program and the $50 million was
spent in a year or two in the 1980's. Some lands are still eligible as development rights were
never sold, but there is no money countywide at the present time. Two properties inside the City
of Kent were purchased by King County under the program in the 1980's— the O'Connell farm
and Consolidated Beverages. The county suspended purchasing properties within cities shortly
thereafter and those were the only two properties in Kent purchased under the program.
Mr. Satterstrom said there are a lot of different uses that agricultural lands are presently used for.
• hi the mid 80's the lands were ultimately zoned A-1,which is agriculture and allows residential
Council Workshop, 1/15/02 5
development to a density of one per acre. The area south of the river, most of which lies
between West Valley Highway and SR167 was zoned AG. Agricultural industries can locate
there. The Smith Brothers Farm was zoned A-1 and is an active dairy. There is some farming
that goes on in that area and there is a residential development. The Department of
Transportation Maintenance Facility is located along the freeway. There is a golf course and a
nursery and also some vacant lands and some active farming lands. Of the two sites that were
purchased under the program, one's currently all wetland and hasn't been used in years. The
area has a very inconsistent land use pattern, and in addition to that, there are wetland and FEMA
constraints. Some of the land lies under flood waters a substantial part of the year when there are
high flows in the Green River, and there is back flow from Mill Creek. Truck farming and
dairying have long coexisted in the Green River Valley along with wetlands.
Terry Zimmerman said the people who've come to talk to the Board have very different ideas
about what is appropriate for their sites in the valley and for their neighbors and the Agri
businesses located there. Everyone has spoken with tremendous conviction about their particular
situation, and it has been very difficult to find any common framework for all of the people. The
folks who are farming small acreage in the valley talk about their need to eventually sell their
land so they can recover some of its value and retire in comfort at the end of a long life of hard
work in farming. No one wants to take away that from someone who has perhaps not
accumulated much in the way of savings or found another way to retire. The Agri businesses—
Smith Brothers and Carpinito Brothers—have a need in these changing economic times for
flexibility on their acreage. It would hurt them businesswise if they were restricted to some
particular plan that is common to the valley, and feel they would lose their options in terms of
• being adaptable in these changing times.
Developers have an interest because the City of Kent is very pressed to meet its GMA goals for a
certain number of housing units each year. There are places in the valley that are beautiful and
would be very attractive to buyers and lots of folks talk about planned communities that might
have a mix of single family, multi family, and condominium housing. There are issues with the
infrastructure in the valley—there's not enough sewer and electrical lines, and investing in that
infrastructure would be a very pricey proposition in order to bring development to the valley.
There are people who are currently leasing the farmland that they are fanning. Some are doing
very well, some are really struggling. There are a couple of nurseries in the valley and one of
them is fairly large and one is fairly small; even those folks didn't agree on what would be the
best thing for their particular businesses. The people of Kent value the farmland because it's
beautiful and peaceful along the river; it supports wildlife; it's where a person can stop and buy
the best fresh vegetables available. The Audubon Society also talked about the importance of the
wildlife and the FEMA flood regulations. There is so much information that the Board has
struggled to come up with any kind of consensus on the direction to take on agricultural lands.
Also, the whole agricultural lands issue has been a little bit of shifting sand and GMA is shifting.
Some farmland was going to be annexed into the City and now it appears that it won't. While
the Board is probably more knowledgeable than it was a year ago, it's not any closer to giving a
really fair and equitable proposition for what to do in the valley. It's very individual.
Ms. Zimmerman said staff had presented four options (one of which may have had two parts),
but depending upon a person's particular interest in the valley, they would fall into one of the
• Council Workshop, 1/15/02 6
four or maybe something creative. Steve Dowell added that what came to his mind was that
there was a fifth question that hadn't been asked, but the people coming before the Board had
been locked into only four possibilities and believed that was all that was available to them and
they had to defend those or go without. The one option that wasn't brought up was the option to
leave the zoning as it is now. It seems zoning can be used to solve the problem.
hi response to Rico Yingling's question about what is required by the GMA or other laws or
ordinances that deal with the issue, Terry Zimmerman said there had been further developments
with GMA requirements and perhaps even some reinterpretation of whether the City needs to be
in the process at all. She said the changes need to be revisited for the sake of GMA. Assistant
City Attorney Kim Adams-Pratt said that cities under the Growth Management Act are required
to designate agricultural lands as resource lands. Agricultural lands are primarily devoted to
agricultural use and are of long term commercial significance. Every piece of land that looks
like a farm may not be agricultural lands as defined by GMA. Long term commercial
significance can be in the past or in the future and has to be land that is devoted to agricultural
use or is capable of being devoted to agricultural use. Even though the land might be vacant
right now and not used, if it still has the soils capable of producing agriculture, then it can be
used. When looking at long term commercial significance, factors are looked at like the
proximity of markets and the outside issues that are coming in on a piece of property—how large
property is, if land around it can be leased, the proximity of public services,water availability,
sewer hookups, roads, Frager Road, etc.
Steve Dowell said the last part of the definition listed in Section 15.02 of long-term commercial
significance says, "and the possibility of more intense uses of land " So, longterm commercial
significance includes the possibility of more intense uses of land—by the City's own definition.
Chief Administrative Officer Mike Martin said a couple of interests emerge—to reduce the
City's financial liability, and to allow those that enjoy existing land uses of certain types to
maintain those rights. Even given the unclarity of the law and of some of the GMA requirements
and the shifting sands, a defensible, plausible strategy can be constructed. Staff is prepared to
work further to clarify some of the legal issues, and the Land Use and Planning Board
understands the charge to move on the issue expeditiously.
Rico Yingling stated he wanted to support the option presented by Steve Dowell to leave the
zoning as is.
The workshop adjourned at 6:04 PM.
Council Office
2aa Floor, City Hall
220 4Lh Ave. South, Kent, 98032
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